Christianity and Hamlet: Shakespeare's Catholic Character

Introduction: Hamlet's Religious Character

Numerous researchers and readers of Shakespearean drama will agree that the playwright develops his characters by drawing on elements of religion, particularly Christianity. In his famous tragedy Hamlet, the conflicted title character is portrayed through several Christian — and especially Catholic — practices and analogies, giving rise to the claim that Hamlet was himself Catholic, despite the play's backdrop being a Lutheran country.

The character of Hamlet largely engages with his community, and his conduct and speech reflect his religious beliefs. He refrains from taking his own life because he firmly understands the necessity of obeying God's commandments:

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden (Hamlet, I.2, 131–135, cited in Shakespeare, 2005).

His articulated views reveal him to be a pious man, staunchly opposed to immorality. He disapproves of the proliferation of licentiousness and drunkenness within his community:

This heavy-headed revel east and west makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations: They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase Soil our addition; and indeed it takes From our achievements, though perform'd at height (Hamlet, I.4, 17–21, cited in Shakespeare, 2005).

Hamlet's Piety and the Immoral Marriage

Shakespeare presents Hamlet's faith as broadly in keeping with that of his fellow community members. However, after being shocked by his mother's illicit marriage, his piety intensifies markedly.

Hamlet's uncle Claudius is regarded as vulgar and lecherous for marrying the widow of the very brother he murdered. In that era, such a marriage was considered incest, and this religious objection is a chief source of Hamlet's loathing of Claudius. It is worth noting that Islam and certain other contemporary religions regard such marriages as lawful. Shakespeare confirms that Hamlet was already enraged and frustrated before speaking to his murdered father's ghost. Hamlet's views on the socially improper marriage of his mother clearly influence and drive his subsequent actions (Alsaif, 2012).

Religion serves as the foundation through which pious believers interpret the world and distinguish between right and wrong. It also helps believers maintain equilibrium in the face of shock. Typically, calamity deepens a believer's abstinence and piety. The shock of his father's death and his mother's betrayal leads Hamlet to see himself as both believer and savior:

The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right! Nay, come, let's go together (Hamlet, I.5, 188–190, cited in Shakespeare, 2005).

A question that remains pressing throughout the play is: what makes Hamlet hesitate if he is fully aware of all of Claudius's wrongdoings? To address this, it is important to examine Shakespeare's repeated use of the phrase "crowing of the cock," which carries considerable symbolic weight.

The Ghost, the Cock's Crowing, and Hamlet's Uncertainty

Disquiet and reluctance are central aspects of Hamlet's personality, including the doubts he harbors regarding his father's ghost. In that era, the cock was a significant Christian symbol, said to have crowed at both the birth and death of Jesus, and understood as a herald of dawn that "brings light to the sins of the night and rouses men to the worship of God" (Guiley, 2008). According to the Spanish-born Roman Christian poet Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, "the night-wandering demons, who rejoice in dunnest shades, at the crowing of the cock tremble and scatter in sore affright" (Summers, 1973). The crowing of the cock is clearly a major structural symbol in Hamlet: the character Marcellus states that the late king's ghost "faded on the crowing of the cock" (Hamlet, I.1, 158, cited in Shakespeare, 2005).

Hamlet continues to be puzzled, as reflected in his uncertainty about the ghost's nature:

Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd, Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou comest in such a questionable shape (Hamlet, I.4, 39–43, cited in Shakespeare, 2005).

By nature, Hamlet is not a hesitant person. Yet his religious beliefs press upon his conduct, and he strives to balance them against his anger:

The spirit that I have seen may be the devil: and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me (Hamlet, II.2, 596–601, cited in Shakespeare, 2005).

Shakespeare suggests that the cock's crowing is an implicit cause of Hamlet's uncertainty. It is in precisely this context that Hamlet's father's ghost reveals the truth of the murder to him.

Conclusion: Christianity as a Framework for Hamlet

Shakespeare's superior rhetorical capabilities lead readers to sympathize with Hamlet. By reviewing Hamlet's conduct through the lens of his religious ideals, one finds that he is directly responsible for the deaths of Laertes, Claudius, and Polonius, and bears indirect responsibility for the deaths of Gertrude, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and himself.

A further interpretive insight may be offered as follows. Following the shocking discoveries revealed to him, Hamlet undergoes a complete transformation, reassessing events from an intensely religious standpoint. The ghost of the late king may be nothing more than an illusion or a psychological disturbance that leads Hamlet to construct an entire narrative. His father's alleged murder at Claudius's hands may also be an illusion born from Hamlet's refusal to accept his mother's unlawful remarriage — an attempt to justify his own violent impulses. Similarly, one might reinterpret Claudius's seeking of forgiveness before God: he may feel guilty not for murder, but simply for marrying his brother's widow, a socially intolerable act.

This perspective opens numerous questions and leaves ample room for further investigation. One may reasonably argue that religion must serve as a basis for literary evaluations of Hamlet, or at the very least, that it helps illuminate the characters' motivations and behaviors — facilitating more comprehensive and reasonable interpretations of this Shakespearean tragedy (Alsaif, 2012).

Alsaif, O. A. (2012). The significance of religion in Hamlet. Journal of English and Literature, 3(6), 132–135.

Guiley, R. E. (2008). The encyclopedia of witches, witchcraft and Wicca (3rd ed.). Facts on File.

Shakespeare, W. (2005). Hamlet (B. Spencer, Ed.; A. Sinfield, Intro.; S. Wells, General Ed.). Penguin Group.

Summers, M. (1973). The history of witchcraft and demonology. Routledge & Kegan Paul.